Physical Movement: Its place in Music

Education
Susan Young

The author calls for the physical, kinesthetic sense, to be recognised and understood for its
role in all musical experience, on a par with our mental capacities, and also suggests that
it is the missing, yet essentially vitalising part, of what might be called a 'whole human'
response to and engagement with music. This thinking is applied to support an emerging
theory of practice, which takes its original inspiration from the principles of Dalcroze
Eurhythmies: principles which have been adapted and developed to meet the changing
needs of contemporary education.

A class of young children are asked to find different sitting positions and to make their
chosen position move in some way. One movement is selected to be imitated by
everyone, and the children find vocal sounds to match their moving. They are asked
to develop their movement; they do it faster, slower, enlarge it or make it smaller, and
for each change the sounds adapt to complement the altered movement.
A simple activity, but one that is based upon the premise that music lives within us;
that it is an extension of all our bodily capacities, a sound energy drawn from our
physical and psychic energies. If music lives within us and finds its energy, its

B. J. Music Ed. (1992) 9, 187-194 Copyright © 1992 Cambridge University Press

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 Physical Movement: Its place in Music Education Susan Young

dynamics, its shapes and patterns in the activity of our bodies, an activity which is
itself a reflection of patterning in our thinking and feeling, it can come to be
experienced and, perhaps, only truly understood through the same medium. For it is
the dimension of time which makes music elusive and fleeting. Yet time takes on a
form of reality through bodily movement; we sense it through our muscular system,
we see it visually in space, and the progression of our bodies through space gives time
an actuality. Through movement we can capture music and come to know its structure
and its meaning by embodying it, by enacting it, actually or by our imaging of physical
movements. Music, and an education for music will only reveal its true power and
significance for us if it remains rooted in these corporal origins.
'All our bodily capacities' is a notion which encompasses all the elements of mind
and body; and yet our cultural traditions drive a sharp division between the mental
and physical, the physical being less valued. Not only do I call for the physical, our
bodily kinesthetic sense to be recognised and understood for its role in all musical
experience, on a par with our mental capacities, but I also suggest that it is the missing,
yet essentially vitalising part of what I shall call a ' whole human' response to and
engagement with music. This thinking will support attempts to crystallise a theory of
practice, taking inspiration from the principles of Dalcroze Eurhythmies developed
and adapted to meet the changing demands of contemporary education, and drawing
on examples of work with primary children and students.
In our cultural view of things there is a tendency to break up wholes into their
constituent parts, so that music becomes rhythm—melody—harmony, and humanity
becomes body—emotions—intellect, as if parts were able to exist independently
instead of as elements of a complete whole. By focusing on separation, we overlook and
often ignore the interaction of those parts and its overall effects. So, just as the unity
and interplay of rhythm, melody and harmony is often neglected, the mutual actions
of mind upon body, and body upon mind, receive scant attention. Jung suggests that
there must be reciprocal action between our physical and psychic energies; an idea we
surely know from our own experiences. Yet the elevation of all things cerebral over all
things corporal leaves us poorly attuned to, even alienated from, our physical selves
and, more specifically, unaware of the relationship between bodily sensation and
mental activity, and of how the physical leads the mental to construct ideas. The
separation of music into component parts links rhythm with physicality, with the
result that both are assigned to the primitive domain of musical experience, to be
passed over quickly in the early stages of musical education, taking the pupil on to the
' higher' cerebral levels of melody and harmony. A unified view would dissolve these
false divisions, so that we could come to know and understand music as a whole with
all our 'body capacities'.
Remaining with cultural issues, the over-emphasis upon the individual, objective,
study of music has caused the shared, communal aspect of music-making to receive
less attention; or, at least, it continues but is thought to be less serious, sometimes a
rather naive and simple response. Physical proximity to each other, the movement of
bodies is a powerful medium through which music can become a shared and
participatory experience. The common vibrations of performers or listeners moving to
music creates an intimacy, a mutual understanding, a moment of common thinking,
amongst all who are present. As an example, circle dances have existed for centuries,
generating group empathy and reinforcing social bonding. Blacking writes,' I suggest
that periods of intense social interaction are most deeply experienced and most likely
to generate conceptual thought when inner feelings are publicly shared through a
counterpoint of bodily movement.' Which returns full circle to the idea of 'whole

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 Physical Movement: Its place in Music Education Susan Young

human' engagement with music; for the communal element, generated through
movement with others, is another neglected part of this whole.
But there is more to Blacking's statement, for he makes a suggestion about the
effects of the interplay of all these component parts. If we are active in every part of
our being, firing on all cylinders, as it were, the result seems to be heightened
awareness, and stimulated emotional and intellectual activity. Use of the body appears
to play a special role in creating a connecting channel between our thinking and feeling
and our outer experiences. What is more, the flow is two-way; for, as Blacking later
proposes, if the thinking is in our moving, the moving can be in our thinking. Physical
activity can engender ideas, gestures become thought patterns. Or, perhaps, it would
be truer to say that to engage with music with all our human faculties would create
musical activity in which the distinction between inner and outer experience would
begin to loosen, an experience of mind, of body, of one with another, enmeshed and
symbolised in sound. For, is not the sharp distinction between outer and inner a false
one, another of these dichotomies much favoured by our cultural view of things ?
Bodily movement overtly combines with music in many forms, and sorting and
clarifying these forms, both further elucidates the bond and points to ways in which
an education for music can exploit these connections. Movement is the raw material
of dance. In musics of other cultures, African and Oriental for example, dance (or
other forms of ritual movement) and music are one and the same art form, inextricably
bound together.
Dancing can take place without accompanying music, but from the sounds of
footfall, the slap of hands and the sight of movement grows an embryonic music. From
the barest of sounds to match the dancing, to the elaborate music dance forms of the
Baroque era, which stand alone carrying only echoes of the dance steps from which
they take their structure, dance music is measured, patterned and shaped by the
stepping of the dancers which inspires it. But not all dance music fits the dancing so

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 Physical Movement: Its place in Music Education Susan Young

exactly. In some African dances the dancers can steer the course of the music by the
style of their movements, coaxing and leading it into new directions. Dancing can
conflict with the music: the steps of a Bulgarian ring dance created a strong three
metre against the duple metre of the music, a polymetric conflict which could only be
discovered and delighted in by joining the circle.
Movements make music directly. Physical action patterns produce sound on the
instruments and part of the skill of becoming a player is to develop smooth and
unfettered connections between the mental images of sound and their realisation
through physical gestures. The control and refinement of physical gesture to carry out
intention lie at the core of kinesthetic skill. There is a cross-over between sound
images, conceived or perceived, and the images of muscular activity to which they give
rise, a cross-over which also occurs in reverse. For movement can also be part of the
response to listening to and playing music. While players must make certain
movements necessary to produce the imagined sound, they also move, almost
instinctively it would appear, in other ways which are essential to their performance;
a non-verbal communication of their conception of the music. The sounds and the
performers' movements arouse in listeners an empathetic motor sensation; whether it
is expressed or not depends on the social setting of the performance, but as suggested
earlier, it is an intrinsic part of understanding the music. Free expression of that urge
to move can enhance the listening experience, a return to the notion that physical
activity heightens awareness. The pleasure of much pop and jazz is derived from being
taken up and carried along by the forward drive, 'of going with it', an experience
intensified by swaying and dancing in the company of others. 'It don't have meaning
if it ain't got swing' said Louis Armstrong in a radio interview; meaning from moving.
Very young children spontaneously move in a rhythmic way when they hear music,
and yet the spontaneity of this response diminishes as they grow older (Moog 1968),
a fact which points to the need to nurture and further develop this apparently natural
response as soon as children come into school.

A Developing Theory of Practice

The children sit in a ring. One child is invited to walk around the outside and back to
her place. While she walks, others begin to tap the pace of her steps on their knees.
The activity is repeated, but this time another child is invited to join behind the first,
matching her steps as they walk. When the pace is established the teacher begins to
sing a known song to the tempo set by their walking. The activity continues with
another child walking naturally at her own pace.
Dalcroze Eurhythmies takes children's natural movements as the starting point of
all music training, and at tempi set internally by the children's own inclinations, and
not externally imposed. This teaching principle is based upon the idea of personal
tempo, that we each carry within us a preferred tempo for voluntary movements.
Research by Fraisse (1949) explored personal tempo, confirming its existence and
demonstrating that, while individual variability is slight, variability between
individuals can be wide - a finding which has implications for teaching, when one class
of children may be asked to conform to, and coordinate their movements to, a preset
tempo. What is also relevant is his finding that personal tempo does not necessarily
relate to pulse rate, often cited as the source of an instinct for rhythm. To perform
movements at tempi slower or faster than our personal tempo we learn to adjust by
meting out energy input, developing control of the muscles to carry the weight of our
body parts at the new speed, and to regulate the nervous tension which results from

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 Physical Movement: Its place in Music Education Susan Young

variations in tempi. Gradually the tempo spectrum is widened, and maintaining a

steady tempo at the extremes is a skill which often needs much practice. The effects
of fast or slow tempi on our mental state is one of music's powers, one of its joys, and
children are especially responsive to those contrasts. Matching our moving to the
moving of others, presented as external visual or aural stimuli, brings additional
difficulties. Visual cues are generally easier at first, although with young children, such
cues should be taken from other children, because the teacher will have a different
movement vocabulary. Sound, then, accompanies movement, matching it so that the
sensation of sound and movement in synchrony is given to the children, while at the
same time they retain lead and control over the sound through their moving. This
experience begins to create the association of movement images with sound. Following
experiences of sound matching movement, children can then be asked to find
movements to match given sounds.
The action of walking carries the body forward through space, emphasising the flow
of music, or more specifically, the span between the beats or accents; for it is
becoming aware of the time/space distances between pulses which is important to the
sense of 'being in time.' Arrival at the next point of tension is determined by judging
the time and space of the movement towards it; we need a sense of anticipation.
Moving the whole body, as in walking, leaves a stronger and more vivid kinetic trace
upon the memory than movements of the smaller, outer body parts - the hands, arms
and feet. Setting our whole selves into action also demands a greater commitment, a
higher state of alertness, than smaller movements. Walking is also quiet and easy on
the body, because movements may be less stressful, more musical without a percussive
quality, and also less distracting to listening.
A recording of a piece, Kpanlogo, performed by Ben Badoo with the Bristol
Percussion Circle (Womad), is played to a fourth year junior class without verbal
introduction. For the first listening, the teacher moves slightly while listening intently
to the music, modelling a listening behaviour to which the class respond. At the second

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 Physical Movement: Its place in Music Education Susan Young

playing the class are asked to listen more specifically to each sound layer as it begins,
and to find a movement to match it. Once again, the teacher joins the class, moving
freely, sometimes taking up movements from the children, sometimes leading and
suggesting movement ideas. The playing of the piece and this moving to it, may be
repeated several times. Working in groups of four or five, the children make up a
movement dance of their own in silence, each member of the group finding a different
movement pattern in imitation of the layered ostinati structure of this piece. Finally,
they take percussion instruments, and each group plays what they have moved.
Moving to music of African style is in keeping with its cultural traditions and is an
appropriate medium for coming to know the music, for getting inside it. At first the
movement response from the children is encouraged by the teacher's modelling of a
listening behaviour. Then the children's listening and moving is directed more
specifically to structural elements, and they must listen attentively in order to be able
to translate what they hear into gestures. Through this process they come to
understand the music intimately, and yet the music itself remains intact; they focus on
the parts within the whole flow. Involvement deepens as the listening and moving is
repeated, often many times. Immediately the children are given an opportunity to
recreate that experience, to make it their own.
It is appropriate at this point to draw a distinction between creating music to fit
movements as they are seen, and creating music as a sound realisation of what you have
moved. The former is largely a visual exercise; any sense of embodiment of the sound
is not derived from direct experience of moving, but from imagining what the
movement music feel like and then translating that idea into sound. But to play what
you have moved is a direct experience. Large, whole body gestures are scaled down
and refined into playing actions on instruments, the sound emanating from kinetic
impressions of muscular activity. Suzuki violin teachers often make a game of enlarged
and stylised bowing actions immediately prior to putting the bow to the instrument.
The motion shapes and patterns transform into gestures for sound, creating
connections; the live wire between movement image and sound image.
Students have been working on the third movement from Messiaen's Et exspecto
resurrectionem mortuorum. The session begins with some general movement work to
develop confidence for moving in the space of the hall with others, and to encourage
the use of the whole body, working particularly with qualities of movement. The task
is then for groups to produce movement pieces to match the music.
Movement is a means of making concrete the structure of musical forms, either for
discovering and understanding form in music as it is heard, or to create movement
forms which can become the foundation for sound forms. The movement makes visual
and real, in a time/space architecture, in patterns on the floor, and in interaction with
others, what is otherwise difficult to capture and hold on to as the music flows past us.
Creating a choreography engages students in a study of detail, and takes them deeper
into the music so that they build an intricate knowledge of the piece, a memory of it.
The tone quality, the dynamics, the sounds and silences, find their counterparts in the
tension of muscles, energy input and weight of the movements. Other 'moving for
listening' activities may be simple dance forms presented by the teacher, but
uncomplicated so that attention is not distracted from the listening; for the ultimate
aim is knowledge of the music through dance, not the dance itself. Another strategy
is to link certain movements with musical cues in the form, providing an incentive to
listen. Alternatively, movements are sometimes totally improvised as a response to
listening.
Third year juniors are asked to pass the word 'zip' around the circle in turn,

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 Physical Movement: Its place in Music Education Susan Young

accompanied by gesture, exaggerated and played around with. The buzz sound grows
and the final ' p ' becomes the focal point of the movement. Then, working in pairs,
they take turns with the ' zip' sound and movement, passing it from one to the other,
selecting and refining their ideas and fixing them in a complete form. They choose an
instrument each, perform their vocal sounds and actions first, followed immediately
by playing on the instruments.
The essence of musical form in much Western European music is the sense of
progression, of direction, the travelling towards moments of tension and climax. The
use of this word emphasised the arrival at a focal point. Taking turns in movement
imposes a simple phrase structure and encourages the pupils to work with one another
in communication. They play their percussion instruments in the realisation of the
movement piece with intense involvement, creating novel sounds and widely varied
gradations of speed, dynamics, and accents as they pass the sound from one to the
other, listening attentively.
Movement forms can become sound forms either by children working on sound and
movement simultaneously or, as in the example cited above and in the African music
lesson, by playing 'what they have moved'. Watching the process carefully as three
girls made up a singing game, I noticed that their song and ring dance emerged as a
unity, the structure of the song and the step patterns evolving as one.
An understanding of music built up through all our bodily capacities will be
intimately connected to the true expressive, living quality of music. The music will
flow, retain its structural elements intact and contextual rather than being lifelessly
analysed. For, in movement activities, children are able to engage with complete
musical 'wholes'. Since movement and music share so many qualities, a conceptual
base derived from movement activities will be built from experiences of how music
really is, rather than how it is on paper or in words, and will also loosen the constraints
of traditional European musical conventions that still dominate our ideas of music
education.
To offer some simple examples: divisive rhythms are usually presented in
mathematical relationships - half, twice as long, and so on - rather than as, in reality,
they move and are heard, as twice as fast and twice as slow. 6/8 rhythms are baffling
and clumsy on paper, and yet they occur so naturally and easily in skipping and
galloping. Children can know so much more about music through their bodies than we
can ever reduce to verbal or written symbols. Such an understanding will be broad and
flexible, easily applied to musics of all cultures and times. If we want our forthcoming
music education curriculum to embrace musics of many cultures, we must first set
about expanding our notions of music education methodology. I have in mind an
ideal; an education for living music which reaches us all, music which moves.

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Acknowledgements
To the pupils and staff of Wrington Primary School.

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